Hinged double-acting impact-traffic doors serve as a popular threshold for areas that receive heavy impact bearing traffic. These doors are commonly found in retail stores at the interface between the public sales area and the restricted stockroom area, and accommodate traffic such as forklifts, dollies and carts. These doors are also commonly found at the threshold of mailrooms and further accommodate bidirectional mail cart traffic, as well as in and around shipping, loading and receiving areas and warehouses. One reason for the popularity of these doors is that they can withstand forces imparted by impact bearing traffic much better than wood or metal doors. Impact-traffic doors distort and absorb the impact of the momentum force, whereas wood and metal doors crack and break. These doors may also include detachable plastic bumpers to further protect the doors from impact, may be arranged as double doors to provide a wider threshold, and may include windows.
A problem exists, however, in suitably securing this type of door. Since the flexible impact-traffic door distorts easily over time due to continual impact, it rarely aligns in the exact same position when closed. For example, it may close on one side of the doorframe one time and then close one the other side of the doorframe the next time. For another example, the bottom of the door may become bent or warped by continued full-mail cart impact such that the bottom of the door usually closes on one side of the doorframe while the top of the door usually closes on the other side of the doorframe. This alignment problem is exasperated by the double-acting nature of the door. Since there is no doorstop on the doorframe, there is no structure for the door to lay up against. Additional detractors such as insulation strips placed along the door or doorframe periphery, further contribute to this alignment problem.
Thus, to secure these hinged double-acting impact-traffic doors, a person must manually and painstakingly align the lock bolt with the strikeplate hole so that they can mate prior to locking the door. This requisite time and patience is particularly problematic within the fast-paced environment in which the doors function. Moreover, even when locked, portions of the flexible door can be bent twelve inches or more, thereby allowing ingress or egress to unintended materials or persons notwithstanding the locked door.
There is thus a need for an improved lock assembly and locking system for hinged double-acting impact-traffic doors.